Wednesday, October 30, 2013

It's been a busy past couple of months which has meant it's been hard to find time to work on any personal projects, however there was an exception that I needed to make and that was to work on my brother's wedding gift. I decided early on that I wanted my gift to be something more than a toaster, something that would have heart, so I ended up going with the idea to paint a portrait of my brother and his bride-to-be. One weekend in the afternoon we visited Kings Park (Perth, WA) and I photographed the pair in various "romantic" poses. I wanted a pose that would be romantic, but also sweet [though nothing provocative]. Tasteful. I ended up with a selection of many great reference images, but ended up choosing the one below because it ticked all the boxes and showed a lovely intimacy as well as nice lighting.

It was a fun painting to work on and also the first one that had more than one subject in the shot. There was an added excitement to be painting people that I know personally, and will therefore mean that I'll probably paint more people that I know in future. I decided to focus the attention of detail on the faces and the exposed hand; this is why I decided not to get caught up with such details as the pattern on Keren's top. I also chose to get a little creative with the background and integrate the subjects with the background by blending edges with rough brush strokes.

This was one of the largest paintings that I've worked on with a canvas size of 85cm x 90cm @ 300dpi (the actual canvas that this image was printed on was slightly larger). Overall a great experience with the added bonus of knowing someone has a copy of it on a physical canvas and are happy.